Fair dinkum start to End of Fashion

SINCE the phenomenal success of End of Fashion's self-titled debut album back in 2005, fans have been eagerly waiting for the guys to release something new.

Now, more than three years on and countless shows later, their reward is the exciting Book of Lies.

And having taken the time to record some new material and re-examine their situation, guitarist Rod Aravena explains that the love of touring and performing live has once again lured the band back onto the road - and this time they'll be hitting Coffs Harbour.

He says the time frame between albums can be attributed to that very same fact - a love of playing live and the guys not wanting to turn down any opportunity.

“We were actually on the road for about two years after the first album, simply because each time a new opportunity came about, we said yes.

“When you're in the music industry, you spend so much time trying to get gigs that when you're finally given these opportunities, it's like 'how can we say no?'”

So how does Book of Lies reflect their journey so far?

“This is the second record for us; it's definitely somewhere we wanted to go. We wanted to expand our sound, everyone became better at songwriting and with our musicianship; this is us at this point in time,” he said.

With so much touring experience, it's expected that the guys have started to move in a different direction, and wanted to try new things.

“I guess we had a lot of time to study our songs, considering we've played them thousands of times over and over. Playing live and recording are two completely different things. What we really wanted to do was to flex different muscles again; try different things - to write, to be creative.

“But we love being on stage and being dramatic and carrying those things across. We played Force of Habit for the first proper time in front of a large crowd, it's not like anything we've done, it's kind of slow and then builds up - and it felt really good that we could deliver that.”

Given the success of their first album back in 2005, you'd forgive the guys for being a little nervous about backing up with the second - but they weren't.

“I wasn't nervous really. The music industry is such a fickle industry; you can only do the best you can in that moment. It's definitely a time and a place thing. It's about what we've got and how we want to present it. If it goes well, it goes well, if it doesn't, we're not going to change our mission; and that's to play great rock music.”

It's with this attitude that the guys have stormed through success after success - including the two Aria awards back in 2005.

“We were very excited. It was completely unexpected, and awards are great, they're like a pat on the back from your peers. We were so shocked, with bands like Wolfmother and the Veronicas being around, we were so surprised, we loved it. You just take it as it is and get back to things, playing shows and just enjoying it. If it happens again we definitely won't say no, but that was definitely a charmed time for us.”

Judging by the success of the debut single off Book of Lies, Fussy, that charmed time may very well be on its way back.

Although the choice of Fussy - a song about a serial killer - as a debut single, may seem like an odd choice, Rod contributes most of that decision to the record company.

“It was a bit of serendipity I guess. That was actually the last song we recorded for the album, Justin had been reading a book about serial killers or something and he came up with this song. The music has that really catchy trumpet hook . . . when it was suggested we were like, 'Fussy? Really?' But it did really well and got lots of commercial radio play which is something we hadn't had before. I'm going to put that back to the record company, because record companies are usually notorious for playing the safe line.”

And so what can Coffs Harbour expect at the show next Tuesday?

“An (expletive) awesome rock'n'roll show. If people are having fun, we'll put on a better show.”